language design - Page 513

MS Ajax Libraries and Configured Assemblies

- by smehaffie

Use Case You have a brand new IIS servers that has .Net 3.5 installed and are migrating sites to the new servers. In the process of migrating sites you come across some sites that get an error about the version of AJAX libraries being references in the web.config. In the web.config all the entries reference 1.0.61025.0, but the older version of the AJAX libraries are not installed on the new servers, only the latest version is installed that comes with .Net 3.5. So what are the options to fix this issue. Solutions 1) Install the older version of the AJAX Libraries: Although this works, IMO it is never a great idea to install an older version of a library after a newer version has been installed. Plus, if all new application use the latest versions, is it worth the effort of installing the older version for a few legacy applications? 2) Update the web.config files so all references use latest version (3.5.0.0): This option is very time consuming and error prone. In addition, you will also have to update any pages where there is a register tag for the older libraries as well. This would require you to redeploy any application that have this issue. 3) Use the Configured Assembly capabilities of .Net (aka: Assembly Bindings) to make any application that uses the older AJAX libraries to use the new AJAX libraries. IMO, this is the easiest, quickest and least invasive way to fix the issue. Below are the steps to implement this fix. Solution #3 Do the following steps on the IIS servers that the issue is occurring. The 2 assemblies that need assemblies bindings created are: System.Web.Extension & System.Web.Extensions.Design 1) Go to Start - > All Program -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration. 2) Right click on "Configured Assemblies" to view list of configured assemblies. 3) Left Click on right pane to bring up menu and choose "Add". 4) Make sure "Choose and assembly from the assembly cache is checked" and click the "Choose Assembly" button. 5) Choose System.Web.Extension (does not matter what version). 6) Click the "Finish" button. 7) Binding Policy Tab - Enter Requested Version = 1.0.61025.0 - Enter New Version = 3.5.0.0 8) Repeat steps 2-7 for the System.Web.Extensions.Design assembly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: If "Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration does not exist under Admin tools use mmc to access it (see below) 1) Start -> Run -> Enter MMC 2) File - > Add/Remove Snap-In then Click "Add" button 3) Choose ".Net 2.0 Configuration" then click "Add" button and then the "Close" Button. 4) On "Add/Remove Snapin" windows click the "OK" Button. 5) Expand the tree on the right and you can start following the directions above for adding the configured assemblies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Silverlight 4 Released

- by ScottGu

The final release of Silverlight 4 is now available. What is in the Silverlight 4 Release Silverlight 4 contains a ton of new features and capabilities. In particular we focused on three scenarios with this release: Further enhancing media support Building great business applications Enabling out of the browser experiences On Tuesday I gave a 60 minute keynote about Silverlight 4 which showed off many of the new features and capabilities now available. You can watch my keynote to learn more about Silverlight 4 and see a ton of great demos of it in action. Also check out these three great posts by Tim Heuer that talk about the new features and provide a guide to the new Silverlight 4 capabilities: Silverlight 4 Beta – A Guide to the New Features Silverlight 4 RC – What was updated Silverlight 4 Released Also read David Anson’s great Silverlight 4 Toolkit post to learn more about the new controls and functionality also available within the Silverlight Toolkit release we also made available today. Also visit this page to learn more about the new Pivot functionality in Silverlight 4 – which makes it really easy to visualize and interact with collections of images using Silverlight. Lastly – make sure to visit the www.silverlight.net web-site and visit the “Get Started” section to find free tutorials that you can use. Download and Install Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 To develop Silverlight 4 applications you should first download and install Visual Studio 2010 or download and install the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express edition. Then install the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010. This setup includes the Silverlight 4 Developer Runtime, Silverlight 4 SDK, RIA Services, and VS 2010 tools support. Once installed you can do File->New Project and choose Silverlight Application to create your first Silverlight 4 project. You can then use the new WYSIWYG Silverlight designer in Visual Studio 2010 to design and build rich Silverlight 4 applications. Important: If you previously installed the Silverlight 4 Beta or RC build on your machine, please make sure to go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall the “Update for Visual Studio 2010 (KB976272)” package prior to installing the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010 setup. Note that while Silverlight 4 is released, the “Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010” is currently in “RC2” mode (meaning we are going to keep an eye out for any remaining issues before finally calling it done). We’ll update the tools to be “final” in a few weeks once we verify that no last minute issues/bugs remain. Download and Install Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate You can also download and install the Expression Blend 4 RC to create and design great Silverlight 4 applications. Blend contains “Sketchflow” support – which makes it really easy to rapidly prototype ideas and applications. To learn more about Sketchflow watch this 90 second video of it in action. Summary Today’s release is the fourth release of Silverlight that we’ve shipped in the last 2.5 years. The team has done a great job of advancing it quickly and staying focused. We think today’s Silverlight 4 release opens up a ton of new opportunities to build great solutions for both consumers and business scenarios. We are looking forward to seeing what you build with it! Hope this helps, Scott

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SQL Server Configuration timeouts - and a workaround [SSIS]

- by jamiet

Ever since I started writing SSIS packages back in 2004 I have opted to store configurations in .dtsConfig (.i.e. XML) files rather than in a SQL Server table (aka SQL Server Configurations) however recently I inherited some packages that used SQL Server Configurations and thus had to immerse myself in their murky little world. To all the people that have ever gone onto the SSIS forum and asked questions about ambiguous behaviour of SQL Server Configurations I now say this... I feel your pain! The biggest problem I have had was in dealing with the change to the order in which configurations get applied that came about in SSIS 2008. Those changes are detailed on MSDN at SSIS Package Configurations however the pertinent bits are: As the utility loads and runs the package, events occur in the following order: The dtexec utility loads the package. The utility applies the configurations that were specified in the package at design time and in the order that is specified in the package. (The one exception to this is the Parent Package Variables configurations. The utility applies these configurations only once and later in the process.) The utility then applies any options that you specified on the command line. The utility then reloads the configurations that were specified in the package at design time and in the order specified in the package. (Again, the exception to this rule is the Parent Package Variables configurations). The utility uses any command-line options that were specified to reload the configurations. Therefore, different values might be reloaded from a different location. The utility applies the Parent Package Variable configurations. The utility runs the package. To understand how these steps differ from SSIS 2005 I recommend reading Doug Laudenschlager’s blog post Understand how SSIS package configurations are applied. The very nature of SQL Server Configurations means that the Connection String for the database holding the configuration values needs to be supplied from the command-line. Typically then the call to execute your package resembles this: dtexec /FILE Package.dtsx /SET "\Package.Connections[SSISConfigurations].Properties[ConnectionString]";"\"Data Source=SomeServer;Initial Catalog=SomeDB;Integrated Security=SSPI;\"", The problem then is that, as per the steps above, the package will (1) attempt to apply all configurations using the Connection String stored in the package for the "SSISConfigurations" Connection Manager before then (2) applying the Connection String from the command-line and then (3) apply the same configurations all over again. In the packages that I inherited that first attempt to apply the configurations would timeout (not unexpected); I had 8 SQL Server Configurations in the package and thus the package was waiting for 2 minutes until all the Configurations timed out (i.e. 15seconds per Configuration) - in a package that only executes for ~8seconds when it gets to do its actual work a delay of 2minutes was simply unacceptable. We had three options in how to deal with this: Get rid of the use of SQL Server configurations and use .dtsConfig files instead Edit the packages when they get deployed Change the timeout on the "SSISConfigurations" Connection Manager #1 was my preferred choice but, for reasons I explain below*, wasn't an option in this particular instance. #2 was discounted out of hand because it negates the point of using Configurations in the first place. This left us with #3 - change the timeout on the Connection Manager. This is done by going into the properties of the Connection Manager, opening the "All" tab and changing the Connect Timeout property to some suitable value (in the screenshot below I chose 2 seconds). This change meant that the attempts to apply the SQL Server configurations timed out in 16 seconds rather than two minutes; clearly this isn't an optimum solution but its certainly better than it was. So there you have it - if you are having problems with SQL Server configuration timeouts within SSIS try changing the timeout of the Connection Manager. Better still - don't bother using SQL Server Configuration in the first place. Even better - install RC0 of SQL Server 2012 to start leveraging SSIS parameters and leave the nasty old world of configurations behind you. @Jamiet * Basically, we are leveraging a SSIS execution/logging framework in which the client had invested a lot of resources and SQL Server Configurations are an integral part of that.

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Advanced Data Source Engine coming to Telerik Reporting Q1 2010

This is the final blog post from the pre-release series. In it we are going to share with you some of the updates coming to our reporting solution in Q1 2010. A new Declarative Data Source Engine will be added to Telerik Reporting, that will allow full control over data management, and deliver significant gains in rendering performance and memory consumption. Some of the engines new features will be: Data source parameters - those parameters will be used to limit data retrieved from the data source to just the data needed for the report. Data source parameters are processed on the data source side, however only queried data is fetched to the reporting engine, rather than the full data source. This leads to lower memory consumption, because data operations are performed on queried data only, rather than on all data. As a result, only the queried data needs to be stored in the memory vs. the whole dataset, which was the case with the old approach Support for stored procedures - they will assist in achieving a consistent implementation of logic across applications, and are especially practical for performing repetitive tasks. A stored procedure stores the SQL statements and logic, which can then be executed in different reports and/or applications. Stored Procedures will not only save development time, but they will also improve performance, because each stored procedure is compiled on the data base server once, and then is reutilized. In Telerik Reporting, the stored procedure will also be parameterized, where elements of the SQL statement will be bound to parameters. These parameterized SQL queries will be handled through the data source parameters, and are evaluated at run time. Using parameterized SQL queries will improve the performance and decrease the memory footprint of your application, because they will be applied directly on the database server and only the necessary data will be downloaded on the middle tier or client machine; Calculated fields through expressions - with the help of the new reporting engine you will be able to use field values in formulas to come up with a calculated field. A calculated field is a user defined field that is computed "on the fly" and does not exist in the data source, but can perform calculations using the data of the data source object it belongs to. Calculated fields are very handy for adding frequently used formulas to your reports; Improved performance and optimized in-memory OLAP engine - the new data source will come with several improvements in how aggregates are calculated, and memory is managed. As a result, you may experience between 30% (for simpler reports) and 400% (for calculation-intensive reports) in rendering performance, and about 50% decrease in memory consumption. Full design time support through wizards - Declarative data sources are a great advance and will save developers countless hours of coding. In Q1 2010, and true to Telerik Reportings essence, using the new data source engine and its features requires little to no coding, because we have extended most of the wizards to support the new functionality. The newly extended wizards are available in VS2005/VS2008/VS2010 design-time. More features will be revealed on the product's what's new page when the new version is officially released in a few days. Also make sure you attend the free webinar on Thursday, March 11th that will be dedicated to the updates in Telerik Reporting Q1 2010. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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List of blogs - year 2010

- by hajan

This is the last day of year 2010 and I would like to add links to all blogs I have posted in this year. First, I would like to mention that I started blogging in ASP.NET Community in May / June 2010 and have really enjoyed writing for my favorite technologies, such as: ASP.NET, jQuery/JavaScript, C#, LINQ, Web Services etc. I also had great feedback either through comments on my blogs or in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn where I met many new experts just as a result of my blog posts. Thanks to the interesting topics I have in my blog, I became DZone MVB. Here is the list of blogs I made in 2010 in my ASP.NET Community Weblog: (newest to oldest) Great library of ASP.NET videos – Pluralsight! NDepend – Code Query Language (CQL) NDepend tool – Why every developer working with Visual Studio.NET must try it! jQuery Templates in ASP.NET - Blogs Series jQuery Templates - XHTML Validation jQuery Templates with ASP.NET MVC jQuery Templates - {Supported Tags} jQuery Templates – tmpl(), template() and tmplItem() Introduction to jQuery Templates ViewBag dynamic in ASP.NET MVC 3 - RC 2 Today I had a presentation on "Deep Dive into jQuery Templates in ASP.NET" jQuery Data Linking in ASP.NET How do you prefer getting bundles of technologies?? Case-insensitive XPath query search on XML Document in ASP.NET jQuery UI Accordion in ASP.NET MVC - feed with data from database (Part 3) jQuery UI Accordion in ASP.NET WebForms - feed with data from database (Part 2) jQuery UI Accordion in ASP.NET – Client side implementation (Part 1) Using Images embedded in Project’s Assembly Macedonian Code Camp 2010 event has finished successfully Tips and Tricks: Deferred execution using LINQ Using System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch class to measure the elapsed time Speaking at Macedonian Code Camp 2010 URL Routing in ASP.NET 4.0 Web Forms Conflicts between ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanels & jQuery functions Integration of jQuery DatePicker in ASP.NET Website – Localization (part 3) Why not to use HttpResponse.Close and HttpResponse.End Calculate Business Days using LINQ Get Distinct values of an Array using LINQ Using CodeRun browser-based IDE to create ASP.NET Web Applications Using params keyword – Methods with variable number of parameters Working with Code Snippets in VS.NET Working with System.IO.Path static class Calculating GridView total using JavaScript/JQuery The new SortedSet<T> Collection in .NET 4.0 JavaScriptSerializer – Dictionary to JSON Serialization and Deserialization Integration of jQuery DatePicker in ASP.NET Website – JS Validation Script (part 2) Integration of jQuery DatePicker in ASP.NET Website (part 1) Transferring large data when using Web Services Forums dedicated to WebMatrix Microsoft WebMatrix – Short overview & installation Working with embedded resources in Project's assembly Debugging ASP.NET Web Services Save and Display YouTube Videos on ASP.NET Website Hello ASP.NET World... In addition, I would like to mention that I have big list of blog posts in CodeASP.NET Community (total 60 blogs) and the local MKDOT.NET Community (total 61 blogs). You may find most of my weblogs.asp.net/hajan blogs posted there too, but there you can find many others. In my blog on MKDOT.NET Community you can find most of my ASP.NET Weblog posts translated in Macedonian language, some of them posted in English and some other blogs that were posted only there. By reading my blogs, I hope you have learnt something new or at least have confirmed your knowledge. And also, if you haven't, I encourage you to start blogging and share your Microsoft Tech. thoughts with all of us... Sharing and spreading knowledge is definitely one of the noblest things which we can do in our life. "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime" HAPPY NEW 2011 YEAR!!! Best Regards, Hajan

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JavaScript: this

- by bdukes

JavaScript is a language steeped in juxtaposition. It was made to “look like Java,” yet is dynamic and classless. From this origin, we get the new operator and the this keyword. You are probably used to this referring to the current instance of a class, so what could it mean in a language without classes? In JavaScript, this refers to the object off of which a function is referenced when it is invoked (unless it is invoked via call or apply). What this means is that this is not bound to your function, and can change depending on how your function is invoked. It also means that this changes when declaring a function inside another function (i.e. each function has its own this), such as when writing a callback. Let's see some of this in action: var obj = { count: 0, increment: function () { this.count += 1; }, logAfterTimeout = function () { setTimeout(function () { console.log(this.count); }, 1); } }; obj.increment(); console.log(obj.count); // 1 var increment = obj.increment; window.count = 'global count value: '; increment(); console.log(obj.count); // 1 console.log(window.count); // global count value: 1 var newObj = {count:50}; increment.call(newObj); console.log(newObj.count); // 51 obj.logAfterTimeout();// global count value: 1 obj.logAfterTimeout = function () { var proxiedFunction = $.proxy(function () { console.log(this.count); }, this); setTimeout(proxiedFunction, 1); }; obj.logAfterTimeout(); // 1 obj.logAfterTimeout = function () { var that = this; setTimeout(function () { console.log(that.count); }, 1); }; obj.logAfterTimeout(); // 1 The last couple of examples here demonstrate some methods for making sure you get the values you expect. The first time logAfterTimeout is redefined, we use jQuery.proxy to create a new function which has its this permanently set to the passed in value (in this case, the current this). The second time logAfterTimeout is redefined, we save the value of this in a variable (named that in this case, also often named self) and use the new variable in place of this. Now, all of this is to clarify what’s going on when you use this. However, it’s pretty easy to avoid using this altogether in your code (especially in the way I’ve demonstrated above). Instead of using this.count all over the place, it would have been much easier if I’d made count a variable instead of a property, and then I wouldn’t have to use this to refer to it. var obj = (function () { var count = 0; return { increment: function () { count += 1; }, logAfterTimeout = function () { setTimeout(function () { console.log(count); }, 1); }, getCount: function () { return count; } }; }()); If you’re writing your code in this way, the main place you’ll run into issues with this is when handling DOM events (where this is the element on which the event occurred). In that case, just be careful when using a callback within that event handler, that you’re not expecting this to still refer to the element (and use proxy or that/self if you need to refer to it). Finally, as demonstrated in the example, you can use call or apply on a function to set its this value. This isn’t often needed, but you may also want to know that you can use apply to pass in an array of arguments to a function (e.g. console.log.apply(console, [1, 2, 3, 4])).

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Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler: What Tables Aren’t In At Least One SubView?

- by thatjeffsmith

Organizing your data model makes the information easier to consume. One of the organizational tools provided by Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler is the ‘SubView.’ In a nutshell, a SubView is a subset of your model. The Challenge: I’ve just created a model which represents my entire ____________ application. We’ll call it ‘residential lending.’ Instead of having all 100+ tables in a single model diagram, I want to break out the tables by module, e.g. appraisals, credit reports, work histories, customers, etc. I’ve spent several hours breaking out the tables to one or more SubViews, but I think i may have missed a few. Is there an easy way to see what tables aren’t in at least ONE subview? The Answer Yes, mostly. The mostly comes about from the way I’m going to accomplish this task. It involves querying the SQL Developer Data Modeler Reporting Schema. So if you don’t have the Reporting Schema setup, you’ll need to do so. Got it? Good, let’s proceed. Before you start querying your Reporting Schema, you might need a data model for the actual reporting schema…meta-meta data! You could reverse engineer the data modeler reporting schema to a new data model, or you could just reference the PDFs in \datamodeler\reports\Reporting Schema diagrams directory. Here’s a hint, it’s THIS one The Query Well, it’s actually going to be at least 2 queries. We need to get a list of distinct designs stored in your repository. For giggles, I’m going to get a listing including each version of the model. So I can query based on design and version, or in this case, timestamp of when it was added to the repository. We’ll get that from the DMRS_DESIGNS table: SELECT DISTINCT design_name, design_ovid, date_published FROM DMRS_designs Then I’m going to feed the design_ovid, down to a subquery for my child report. select name, count(distinct diagram_id) from DMRS_DIAGRAM_ELEMENTS where design_ovid = :dESIGN_OVID and type = 'Table' group by name having count(distinct diagram_id) < 2 order by count(distinct diagram_id) desc Each diagram element has an entry in this table, so I need to filter on type=’Table.’ Each design has AT LEAST one diagram, the master diagram. So any relational table in this table, only having one listing means it’s not in any SubViews. If you have overloaded object names, which is VERY possible, you’ll want to do the report off of ‘OBJECT_ID’, but then you’ll need to correlate that to the NAME, as I doubt you’re so intimate with your designs that you recognize the GUIDs So I’m going to cheat and just stick with names, but I think you get the gist. My Model Of my almost 90 tables, how many of those have I not added to at least one SubView? Now let’s run my report! Voila! My ‘BEER2′ table isn’t in any SubView! It says ’1′ because the main model diagram counts as a view. So if the count came back as ’2′, that would mean the table was in the main model diagram and in 1 SubView diagram. And I know what you’re thinking, what kind of residential lending program would have a table called ‘BEER2?’ Let’s just say, that my business model has some kinks to work out!

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Principles of Big Data By Jules J Berman, O’Reilly Media Book Review

- by Compudicted

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Compudicted/archive/2013/11/04/principles-of-big-data-by-jules-j-berman-orsquoreilly-media.aspx A fantastic book! Must be part, if not yet, of the fundamentals of the Big Data as a field of science. Highly recommend to those who are into the Big Data practice. Yet, I confess this book is one of my best reads this year and for a number of reasons: The book is full of wisdom, intimate insight, historical facts and real life examples to how Big Data projects get conceived, operate and sadly, yes, sometimes die. But not only that, the book is most importantly is filled with valuable advice, accurate and even overwhelming amount of reference (from the positive side), and the author does not event stop there: there are numerous technical excerpts, links and examples allowing to quickly accomplish many daunting tasks or make you aware of what one needs to perform as a data practitioner (excuse my use of the word practitioner, I just did not find a better substitute to it to trying to reference all who face Big Data). Be aware that Jules Berman’s background is in medicine, naturally, this book discusses this subject a lot as it is very dear to the author’s heart I believe, this does not make this book any less significant however, quite the opposite, I trust if there is an area in science or practice where the biggest benefits can be ripped from Big Data projects it is indeed the medical science, let’s make Cancer history! On a personal note, for me as a database, BI professional it has helped to understand better the motives behind Big Data initiatives, their underwater rivers and high altitude winds that divert or propel them forward. Additionally, I was impressed by the depth and number of mining algorithms covered in it. I must tell this made me very curious and tempting to find out more about these indispensable attributes of Big Data so sure I will be trying stretching my wallet to acquire several books that go more in depth on several most popular of them. My favorite parts of the book, well, all of them actually, but especially chapter 9: Analysis, it is just very close to my heart. But the real reason is it let me see what I do with data from a different angle. And then the next - “Special Considerations”, they are just two logical parts. The writing language is of this book is very acceptable for all levels, I had no technical problem reading it in ebook format on my 8” tablet or a large screen monitor. If I would be asked to say at least something negative I have to state I had a feeling initially that the book’s first part reads like an academic material relaxing the reader as the book progresses forward. I admit I am impressed with Jules’ abilities to use several programming languages and OSS tools, bravo! And I agree, it is not too, too hard to grasp at least the principals of a modern programming language, which seems becomes a defacto knowledge standard item for any modern human being. So grab a copy of this book, read it end to end and make yourself shielded from making mistakes at any stage of your Big Data initiative, by the way this book also helps build better future Big Data projects. Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Program.

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What if “Microsoft” were in our shoes? About Windows Phone

- by Vijaya Malla

This is what I think about Microsoft Windows Phone. If Microsoft were in our shoes looking at various phones available their configurations, memory, front facing cameras etc. Microsoft disappointed the USA customer base again by not getting Nokia Lumia 800. The Past: If we talk few years ago, few business people were on their Blackberry’s and few Gadget lovers were on crappy Windows OS devices. The world was all going right till Apple came with a revolutionary device iPhone, which completely changed our perception towards phone and how great a smartphone can be. It’s not just phone but the whole technology industry. The romantic appealing of the phone and smooth touch and feel of it made everyone to get one of those bad boys. The sales went up for not just Apple for AT&T too. Even though everyone complained about the signal strength of AT&T, everyone wanted to be on it because they have iPhones. All world wanted iPhone back then except Microsoft with few comments on how it is not going to be in market. But it did great and rocked the industry. A few years later with iPhone and Android taking over the smartphone market Microsoft realized that it should be in the game too. Worked on the design of it, and gave us the best Mobile OS ever. Everyone thinks that iOS is a great OS for phones but if you have touched a Windows Phone and use it for real then you will realize the strengths of it. so last year we welcomed Windows Phone 7 The Present : Windows Phone 7 has the fastest growing market. The phones are cheap, you can buy from any carrier out there. The phone became smarter and smarter with the recent update “Mango (7.5)” and with the collaboration with Nokia, Microsoft created a new eco-system for smartphones with the best smartphone hardware and best smartphone software. Everyone in the world was excited about the collaboration. As we fly over cloud 9 imagining about Nokia made Windows Phones we all heard a good news from Nokia “Nokia World”. Nokia showed the world what a best hardware making company can do with Windows Phone 7.5 OS. Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 took the spotlight. Everyone here in USA and all over the world wanted to own a Nokia Lumia 800 because of the design, software, proprietary apps from Nokia (maps, ESPN, drive and music). If USA market had Nokia Lumia 800, then it would have been the best step Microsoft and Nokia had ever made in their history of smartphone market. With all the numbers going to Android and IPhone, its not clear on why Microsoft/Nokia did not release Lumia 800 here in USA. Its unclear if Microsoft had learnt the lesson or not. if it had learnt the lesson I guess Microsoft needs to get the Nokia Lumia 800 to the USA. The Future: This is where we hope we get the best form Microsoft. I was an iPhone user, I used 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4 and then moved to Windows Phone and never felt so happy with my iPhones’. From the day when Nokia announced the partnership with Microsoft and said that they going to come up with a new Nokia windows phone, I was dreaming for my Nokia Phone. but looks like it is not going to happen any time soon. My thoughts about the Market : Nokia has the biggest market base in the world. Even though people moved to Android or iPhone over the years in other parts of the world like India and China, people still love to use Nokia. Everyone who uses a Windows Phone now will wait for that day when Nokia Lumia comes to the USA but what either or both of the companies should do for a better market share is to make a very aggressive move with the hardware and bet on the devices. I am pretty sure that it will work. everyone here in the USA will like to have a dual core windows phone with front facing camera and all other crazy things that android/apple phones offer. I think we just have to wait for that day and hope that day comes soon. Love Microsoft and Nokia Thank you for reading.

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jQuery Context Menu Plugin and Capturing Right-Click

- by Ben Griswold

I was thrilled to find Cory LaViska’s jQuery Context Menu Plugin a few months ago. In very little time, I was able to integrate the context menu with the jQuery Treeview. I quickly had a really pretty user interface which took full advantage of limited real estate. And guess what. As promised, the plugin worked in Chrome, Safari 3, IE 6/7/8, Firefox 2/3 and Opera 9.5. Everything was perfect and I shipped to the Integration Environment. One thing kept bugging though – right clicks aren’t the standard in a web environment. Sure, when one hovers over the treeview node, the mouse changed from an arrow to a pointer, but without help text most users will certainly left-click rather than right. As I was already doubting the design decision, we did some Mac testing. The context menu worked in Firefox but not Safari. Damn. That’s when I started digging into the Madness of Javascript Mouse Events. Don’t tell, but it’s complicated. About as close as one can get to capture the right-click mouse event on all major browsers on Windows and Mac is this: if (event.which == null) /* IE case */ button= (event.button < 2) ? "LEFT" : ((event.button == 4) ? "MIDDLE" : "RIGHT"); else /* All others */ button= (event.which < 2) ? "LEFT" : ((event.which == 2) ? "MIDDLE" : "RIGHT"); Yikes. The content menu code was simply checking if event.button == 2. No problem. Cory offers a jQuery Right Click Plugin which I’m sure works for windows but probably not the Mac either. (Please note I haven’t verified this.) Anyway, I decided to address my UI design concern and the Safari Mac issue in one swoop. I decided to make the context menu respond to any mouse click event. This didn’t take much – especially after seeing how Bill Beckelman updated the library to recognize the left click. First, I added an AnyClick option to the library defaults: // Any click may trigger the dropdown and that's okay // See Javascript Madness: Mouse Events – http: //unixpapa.com/js/mouse.html if (o.anyClick == undefined) o.anyClick = false; And then I trigger the context menu dropdown based on the following conditional: if (evt.button == 2 || o.anyClick) { Nothing tricky about that, right? Finally, I updated my menu setup to include the AnyClick value, if true: $('.member').contextMenu({ menu: 'memberContextMenu', anyClick: true }, function (action, el, pos) { … Now the context menu works in “all” environments if you left, right or even middle click. Download jQuery Context Menu Plugin for Any Click *Opera 9.5 has an option to allow scripts to detect right-clicks, but it is disabled by default. Furthermore, Opera still doesn’t allow JavaScript to disable the browser’s default context menu which causes a usability conflict.

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Best WordPress Shopping Cart & Ecommerce Plugins

- by Edward

A versatile WordPress Shopping Cart plugin can help you create a feature-rich online store on your WordPress-powered website or blog. Some are so advanced that you can get your store up and running in minutes. Some plugins allow you to take ecommerce to a next level with their high end customization tools. Here is a list of best WP shopping cart plugins available: Cart66 One of the best WordPress plugin with lots of features, great quality and ease of use. It accepts few more payment getways such as PayPal Website Payments Standard, PayPal Website Payments Professional, PayPal Express Checkout, eProcessing Network etc. It has flexible design options, recurring payments for subscriptions, memberships, and payment plans, Easy PCI Compliance – Safe and Secure. It is fast and efficient, one can sell digital and physical products and support is good. Price: Standard $49 & Professional $99 Details Download StorePress StorePress is a WordPress theme, which is fully coded. It comes with scripts that can change a WordPress blog into a veritable e-commerce virtual store. With this great premium WordPress theme, one can start affiliate stores, or promote affiliate products. Price: Single $59.99 & Developer License $119.99 Details Download WordPress eStore Plugin This shopping cart plugin comes with easy checkout, ease of design and use, automatic instant digital product delivery, Next Gen gallery integration, autoresponder integration etc. It is a lightweight shopping cart and allows multi site license. This plugin offers an amazingly comprehensive toolkit that will ensure your online shop is almost just plug-and-play. Price: $49.99 Details Download Shoppers Press Shoppers press is a premium cart for Word Press that comes with 20+ to choose from and 20+ built in payment gateways. It features one-click setups, personalized user accounts, easy management tools, detailed sales tracking, promotional options, a variety of product import tools, and many more features Price:$79 Details Download WordPress Shopping Cart plugin The WordPress Shopping Cart plugin by Tribulant quickly and seamlessly integrates an online shop with a fully functional shopping cart interface into any WordPress website. It has easy to use interface, which enables set up of multiple products and categorize and organizing them into multiple product categories. It also has many more attractive features. Price: $49.99 Details Download WP e-commerce WP e-commerce is a free full-featured shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It is a full featured shopping cart and boasts of easy checkout. It offers a wide range of features including SSL compatibility, customization and merchandising, integrated payment processing solutions including manual payment, Google Checkout and PayPal Payments, and email marketing. It is wordpress and social networking integrated. It is customizable by use of PHP template tag, wordpress shortcode and widgets. Details Download YAK for WordPress YAK is an open source shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It associates products with weblog entries (in other words, posts), so the post ID also becomes the product code. It supports both pages and posts as products, handles different types of product through categories. YAK supports downloadable products, so any e-books, plugins, or zip files you’re marketing can be easily purchased and dowloaded. Details Download Market Press It is another shopping cart full of many features. It offers following features such as assign categories and tags to products to make them easy to find, stock tracking with alerts, order management/alerts, fully customizable email messages, full support for most major currencies, fully customizable store urls/slugs, customers can checkout without being a site user etc. Expensive, but good option for those who can afford it. Price: $17.42/month Details Download Shopp It is an excellent shopping cart plugin for Word Press. This plugin is extremely easy to install and use. It has a cleaner interface. The customer support is good. Use can easily customize the look of the cart by using its amazing features. Price: $55 Details Download Related posts:8 PHP Shopping Cart Software for Reliable Ecommerce Solution Shopping Cart SEO 8 Free Open Source Shopping Carts

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Markus Zirn, "Big Data with CEP and SOA" @ SOA, Cloud & Service Technology Symposium 2012

- by JuergenKress

ORACLE PROMOTIONAL DISCOUNT FOR EXCLUSIVE ORACLE DISCOUNT, ENTER PROMO CODE: DJMXZ370 Early-Bird Registration is Now Open with Special Pricing! Register before July 1, 2012 to qualify for discounts. Visit the Registration page for details. The International SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium is a yearly event that features the top experts and authors from around the world, providing a series of keynotes, talks, demonstrations, and panels, as well as training and certification workshops - all dedicated to empowering IT professionals to realize modern service technologies and practices in the real world. Click here for a two-page printable conference overview (PDF). Big Data with CEP and SOA - September 25, 2012 - 14:15 Speaker: Markus Zirn, Oracle and Baz Kuthi, Avocent The "Big Data" trend is driving new kinds of IT projects that process machine-generated data. Such projects store and mine using Hadoop/ Map Reduce, but they also analyze streaming data via event-driven patterns, which can be called "Fast Data" complementary to "Big Data". This session highlights how "Big Data" and "Fast Data" design patterns can be combined with SOA design principles into modern, event-driven architectures. We will describe specific architectures that combines CEP, Distributed Caching, Event-driven Network, SOA Composites, Application Development Framework, as well as Hadoop. Architecture patterns include pre-processing and filtering event streams as close as possible to the event source, in memory master data for event pattern matching, event-driven user interfaces as well as distributed event processing. Focus is on how "Fast Data" requirements are elegantly integrated into a traditional SOA architecture. Markus Zirn is Vice President of Product Management covering Oracle SOA Suite, SOA Governance, Application Integration Architecture, BPM, BPM Solutions, Complex Event Processing and UPK, an end user learning solution. He is the author of “The BPEL Cookbook” (rated best book on Services Oriented Architecture in 2007) as well as “Fusion Middleware Patterns”. Previously, he was a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton’s High Tech practice in Duesseldorf as well as San Francisco and Vice President of Product Marketing at QUIQ. Mr. Zirn holds a Masters of Electrical Engineering from the University of Karlsruhe and is an alumnus of the Tripartite program, a joint European degree from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, the University of Southampton, UK, and ESIEE, France. KEYNOTES & SPEAKERS More than 80 international subject matter experts will be speaking at the Symposium. Below are confirmed keynotes and speakers so far. Over 50% of the agenda has not yet been finalized. Many more speakers to come. View the partial program calendars on the Conference Agenda page. CONFERENCE THEMES & TRACKS Cloud Computing Architecture & Patterns New SOA & Service-Orientation Practices & Models Emerging Service Technology Innovation Service Modeling & Analysis Techniques Service Infrastructure & Virtualization Cloud-based Enterprise Architecture Business Planning for Cloud Computing Projects Real World Case Studies Semantic Web Technologies (with & without the Cloud) Governance Frameworks for SOA and/or Cloud Computing Projects Service Engineering & Service Programming Techniques Interactive Services & the Human Factor New REST & Web Services Tools & Techniques Oracle Specialized SOA & BPM Partners Oracle Specialized partners have proven their skills by certifications and customer references. To find a local Specialized partner please visit http://solutions.oracle.com SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Markus Zirn,SOA Symposium,Thomas Erl,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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MongoDB usage best practices

- by andresv

The project I'm working on uses MongoDB for some stuff so I'm creating some documents to help developers speedup the learning curve and also avoid mistakes and help them write clean & reliable code. This is my first version of it, so I'm pretty sure I will be adding more stuff to it, so stay tuned! C# Official driver notes The 10gen official MongoDB driver should always be referenced in projects by using NUGET. Do not manually download and reference assemblies in any project. C# driver quickstart guide: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Driver+Quickstart Reference links C# Language Center: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Language+Center MongoDB Server Documentation: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Home MongoDB Server Downloads: http://www.mongodb.org/downloads MongoDB client drivers download: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Drivers MongoDB Community content: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Community+Projects Tutorials Tutorial MongoDB con ASP.NET MVC - Ejemplo Práctico (Spanish):http://geeks.ms/blogs/gperez/archive/2011/12/02/tutorial-mongodb-con-asp-net-mvc-ejemplo-pr-225-ctico.aspx MongoDB and C#:http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/87757/MongoDB-and-C C# driver LINQ tutorial:http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Driver+LINQ+Tutorial C# driver reference: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Driver+Tutorial Safe Mode Connection The C# driver supports two connection modes: safe and unsafe. Safe connection mode (only applies to methods that modify data in a database like Inserts, Deletes and Updates. While the current driver defaults to unsafe mode (safeMode == false) it's recommended to always enable safe mode, and force unsafe mode on specific things we know aren't critical. When safe mode is enabled, the driver internal code calls the MongoDB "getLastError" function to ensure the last operation is completed before returning control the the caller. For more information on using safe mode and their implicancies on performance and data reliability see: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/getLastError+Command If safe mode is not enabled, all data modification calls to the database are executed asynchronously (fire & forget) without waiting for the result of the operation. This mode could be useful for creating / updating non-critical data like performance counters, usage logging and so on. It's important to know that not using safe mode implies that data loss can occur without any notification to the caller. As with any wait operation, enabling safe mode also implies dealing with timeouts. For more information about C# driver safe mode configuration see: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+getLastError+and+SafeMode The safe mode configuration can be specified at different levels: Connection string: mongodb://hostname/?safe=true Database: when obtaining a database instance using the server.GetDatabase(name, safeMode) method Collection: when obtaining a collection instance using the database.GetCollection(name, safeMode) method Operation: for example, when executing the collection.Insert(document, safeMode) method Some useful SafeMode article: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4604868/mongodb-c-sharp-safemode-official-driver Exception Handling The driver ensures that an exception will be thrown in case of something going wrong, in case of using safe mode (as said above, when not using safe mode no exception will be thrown no matter what the outcome of the operation is). As explained here https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mongodb-user/mS6jIq5FUiM there is no need to check for any returned value from a driver method inserting data. With updates the situation is similar to any other relational database: if an update command doesn't affect any records, the call will suceed anyway (no exception thrown) and you manually have to check for something like "records affected". For MongoDB, an Update operation will return an instance of the "SafeModeResult" class, and you can verify the "DocumentsAffected" property to ensure the intended document was indeed updated. Note: Please remember that an Update method might return a null instance instead of an "SafeModeResult" instance when safe mode is not enabled. Useful Community Articles Comments about how MongoDB works and how that might affect your application: http://ethangunderson.com/blog/two-reasons-to-not-use-mongodb/ FourSquare using MongoDB had serious scalability problems: http://mashable.com/2010/10/07/mongodb-foursquare/ Is MongoDB a replacement for Memcached? http://www.quora.com/Is-MongoDB-a-good-replacement-for-Memcached/answer/Rick-Branson MongoDB Introduction, shell, when not to use, maintenance, upgrade, backups, memory, sharding, etc: http://www.markus-gattol.name/ws/mongodb.html MongoDB Collection level locking support: https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-1240 MongoDB performance tips: http://www.quora.com/MongoDB/What-are-some-best-practices-for-optimal-performance-of-MongoDB-particularly-for-queries-that-involve-multiple-documents Lessons learned migrating from SQL Server to MongoDB: http://www.wireclub.com/development/TqnkQwQ8CxUYTVT90/read MongoDB replication performance: http://benshepheard.blogspot.com.ar/2011/01/mongodb-replication-performance.html

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Collation errors in business

- by Rob Farley

At the PASS Summit last month, I did a set (Lightning Talk) about collation, and in particular, the difference between the “English” spoken by people from the US, Australia and the UK. One of the examples I gave was that in the US drivers might stop for gas, whereas in Australia, they just open the window a little. This is what’s known as a paraprosdokian, where you suddenly realise you misunderstood the first part of the sentence, based on what was said in the second. My current favourite is Emo Phillip’s line “I like to play chess with old men in the park, but it can be hard to find thirty-two of them.” Essentially, this a collation error, one that good comedians can get mileage from. Unfortunately, collation is at its worst when we have a computer comparing two things in different collations. They might look the same, and sound the same, but if one of the things is in SQL English, and the other one is in Windows English, the poor database server (with no sense of humour) will get suspicious of developers (who all have senses of humour, obviously), and declare a collation error, worried that it might not realise some nuance of the language. One example is the common scenario of a case-sensitive collation and a case-insensitive one. One may think that “Rob” and “rob” are the same, but the other might not. Clearly one of them is my name, and the other is a verb which means to steal (people called “Nick” have the same problem, of course), but I have no idea whether “Rob” and “rob” should be considered the same or not – it depends on the collation. I told a lie before – collation isn’t at its worst in the computer world, because the computer has the sense to complain about the collation issue. People don’t. People will say something, with their own understanding of what they mean. Other people will listen, and apply their own collation to it. I remember when someone was asking me about a situation which had annoyed me. They asked if I was ‘pissed’, and I said yes. I meant that I was annoyed, but they were asking if I’d been drinking. It took a moment for us to realise the misunderstanding. In business, the problem is escalated. A business user may explain something in a particular way, using terminology that they understand, but using words that mean something else to a technical person. I remember a situation with a checkbox on a form (back in VB6 days from memory). It was used to indicate that something was approved, and indicated whether a particular database field should store True or False – nothing more. However, the client understood it to mean that an entire workflow system would be implemented, with different users have permission to approve items and more. The project manager I’d just taken over from clearly hadn’t appreciated that, and I faced a situation of explaining the misunderstanding to the client. Lots of fun... Collation errors aren’t just a database setting that you can ignore. You need to remember that Americans speak a different type of English to Aussies and Poms, and techies speak a different language to their clients.

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ASP.NET Performance tip- Combine multiple script file into one request with script manager

- by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

We all need java script for our web application and we storing our JavaScript code in .js files. Now If we have more then .js file then our browser will create a new request for each .js file. Which is a little overhead in terms of performance. If you have very big enterprise application you will have so much over head for this. Asp.net Script Manager provides a feature to combine multiple JavaScript into one request but you must remember that this feature will be available only with .NET Framework 3.5 sp1 or higher versions. Let’s take a simple example. I am having two javascript files Jscrip1.js and Jscript2.js both are having separate functions. //Jscript1.js function Task1() { alert('task1'); } Here is another one for another file. ////Jscript1.js function Task2() { alert('task2'); } Now I am adding script reference with script manager and using this function in my code like this. <form id="form1" runat="server"> <asp:ScriptManager ID="myScriptManager" runat="server" > <Scripts> <asp:ScriptReference Path="~/JScript1.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Path="~/JScript2.js" /> </Scripts> </asp:ScriptManager> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> Task1(); Task2(); </script> </form> Now Let’s test in Firefox with Lori plug-in which will show you how many request are made for this. Here is output of that. You can see 5 Requests are there. Now let’s do same thing in with ASP.NET Script Manager combined script feature. Like following <form id="form1" runat="server"> <asp:ScriptManager ID="myScriptManager" runat="server" > <CompositeScript> <Scripts> <asp:ScriptReference Path="~/JScript1.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Path="~/JScript2.js" /> </Scripts> </CompositeScript> </asp:ScriptManager> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> Task1(); Task2(); </script> </form> Now let’s run it and let’s see how many request are there like following. As you can see now we have only 4 request compare to 5 request earlier. So script manager combined multiple script into one request. So if you have lots of javascript files you can save your loading time with this with combining multiple script files into one request. Hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more!!!.. Happy programming.. Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,ScriptManager,Microsoft Ajax

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Innovative SPARC: Lighting a Fire Under Oracle's New Hardware Business

- by Paulo Folgado

"There's a certain level of things you can do with commercially available parts," says Oracle Executive Vice President Mike Splain. But, he notes, you can do so much more if you design the parts yourself. Mike Splain,EVP, OracleYou can, for example, design cryptographic accelerators into your microprocessors so customers can run their networks fully encrypted if they choose.Of course, it helps if you've already built multiple processing "cores" into those chips so they can handle all that encrypting and decrypting while still getting their other work done.System on a ChipAs the leader of Oracle Microelectronics, Mike knows how implementing clever innovations in silicon can give systems a real competitive advantage.The SPARC microprocessors that his team designed at Sun pioneered the concept of multiple cores several years ago, and the UltraSPARC T2 processor--the industry's first "system on a chip"--packs up to eight cores per chip, each running as many as eight threads at once. That's the most cores and threads of any general-purpose processor. Looking back, Mike points out that the real value of large enterprise-class servers was their ability to run a lot of very large applications in parallel."The beauty of our CMT [chip multi-threading] machines is you can get that same kind of parallel-processing capability at a much lower cost and in a much smaller footprint," he says.The Whole StackWhat has Mike excited these days is that suddenly the opportunity to innovate is much bigger as part of Oracle."In my group, we used to look up the software stack and say, 'We can do any innovation we want, provided the only thing we have to change is what's in the Solaris operating system'--or maybe Java," he says. "If we wanted to change things beyond that, we'd have to go outside the walls of Sun and we'd have to convince the vendors: 'You have to align with us, you have to test with us, you have to build for us, and then you'll reap the benefits.' Now we get access to the entire stack. We can look all the way through the stack and say, 'Okay, what would make the database go faster? What would make the middleware go faster?'"Changing the WorldMike and his microelectronics team also like the fact that Oracle is not just any software company. We're #1 in database, middleware, business intelligence, and more."We're like all the other engineers from Sun; we believe we can change the world, if we can just figure out how to get people to pay attention to us," he says. "Now there's a mechanism at Oracle--much more so than we ever had at Sun."He notes, too, that every innovation in SPARC has involved some combination of hardware and softwareoptimization."Take our cryptography framework, for example. Sure, we can accelerate rapidly, but the Solaris OS has to provide the right set of interfaces that applications can tap into," Mike says. "Same thing with our multicore architecture. We have to have software that can utilize all those threads and run in parallel." His engineers, he points out, have never been interested in producing chips that sell as mere components."Our chips are always designed to go into systems and be combined with various pieces of software," he says. "Our job is to enable the creation of systems."

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Silverlight Cream for December 12, 2010 -- #1008

- by Dave Campbell

In this Issue: Michael Washington, Samuel Jack, Alfred Astort(-2-), Nokola(-2-), Avi Pilosof, Chris Klug, Pete Brown, Laurent Bugnion(-2-), and Jaime Rodriguez(-2-, -3-). Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Sharing resources and styles between projects in Silverlight" Chris Klug WP7: "Windows Phone Application Performance at Silverlight Firestarter" Jaime Rodriguez Training: "Silverlight View Model (MVVM) - A Play In One Act" Michael Washington Shoutouts: Koen Zwikstra announced the availability of the first Silverlight Spy 4 Preview 1 Gavin Wignall announced the Launch of Festive game built with Silverlight 4, hosted on Azure ... free to play. From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight View Model (MVVM) - A Play In One Act Michael Washington has an interesting take on writing a blog post with this 'play' version of Silverlight View Models and Expression Blend with a heaping dose of Behaviors added in for flavoring. Build a Windows Phone Game in 3 days – Day 1 Samuel Jack is attempting to build a WP7 game in 3 days including downloading the tools and an XNA book... interesting to see where he's headed wth this venture. 4 of 10 - Make sure your finger can hit the target and text is legible Continuing with a series of tips from the folks reviewing apps for the marketplace via Alfred Astort is this number 4 -- touch target size and legible text. 5 of 10 - Give feedback on touch and progress within your UI Alfred Astort's number 5 is also up, and continues the touch discussion with this tip about giving the user feedback on their touch. Fantasia Painter Released for Windows Phone 7 + Tips Nokola took the release of his Fantasia Painter on WP& as an opportunity not only to blog about the fact that we can go buy it, but has a blog full of hints and tips that he gathered while working on it. Games for Windows Phone 7 Resources: Reducing Load Times, RPG Kit; Other Nokola also blogged about the release of the new games education pack, and gives up the cursor he uses in his videos after being asked... The simplest way to do design-time ViewModels with MVVM and Blend. Avi Pilosof attacks the design-time ViewModel issue in Blend with a 'no code' solution. Sharing resources and styles between projects in Silverlight Chris Klug is talking about sharing resources and styles across a large Silverlight project... near and dear to my heart at this moment. Dynamically Generating Controls in WPF and Silverlight Pete Brown has a post up that's generated some interest... creating controls at runtime... and he's demonstrating several different ways for both Silverlight and WPF #twitter for Windows Phone 7 protips (#wp7) Laurent Bugnion was posting these great tips for Twitter for WP7 and rolled all 16 of them up into a blog post... check them and the app out... Increasing touch surface (#wp7dev) Laurent Bugnion's most current post should be of great interest to WP7 devs... providing more touch surface for your user's fat fingers, err, I mean their fat fingerings :) ... great information and samples ... and interesting it is a fail point as listed by Alfred Astort above. Windows Phone Application Performance at Silverlight Firestarter This material from Jaime Rodriguez actually hit prior to his Firestarter presentation, but should be required reading for anyone doing a WP7 app... great Performance tips from the trenches... slide deck, cheat-sheet, and code. UpdateSourceTrigger on Windows Phone data bindings Another post from Jaime Rodriguez actually went through a couple revisions already.. how about a WP7 TextBox that fires notifications to the ViewModel when the text changes? ... would you like a behavior with that? Details on the Push Notification app limits Jaime Rodriguez has yet another required reading post up on Push Notification limits ... what it really entails and how you can be a good WP7 citizen by the way you program your app. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone MIX10

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What’s the use of code reuse?

- by Tony Davis

All great developers write reusable code, don’t they? Well, maybe, but as with all statements regarding what “great” developers do or don’t do, it’s probably an over-simplification. A novice programmer, in particular, will encounter in the literature a general assumption of the importance of code reusability. They spend time worrying about DRY (don’t repeat yourself), moving logic into specific “helper” modules that they can then reuse, agonizing about the minutiae of the class structure, inheritance and interface design that will promote easy reuse. Unfortunately, writing code specifically for reuse often leads to complicated object hierarchies and inheritance models that are anything but reusable. If, instead, one strives to write simple code units that are highly maintainable and perform a single function, in a concise, isolated fashion then the potential for reuse simply “drops out” as a natural by-product. Programmers, of course, care about these principles, about encapsulation and clean interfaces that don’t expose inner workings and allow easy pluggability. This is great when it helps with the maintenance and development of code but how often, in practice, do we actually reuse our code? Most DBAs and database developers are familiar with the practical reasons for the limited opportunities to reuse database code and its potential downsides. However, surely elsewhere in our code base, reuse happens often. After all, we can all name examples, such as date/time handling modules, which if we write with enough care we can plug in to many places. I spoke to a developer just yesterday who looked me in the eye and told me that in 30+ years as a developer (a successful one, I’d add), he’d never once reused his own code. As I sat blinking in disbelief, he explained that, of course, he always thought he would reuse it. He’d often agonized over its design, certain that he was creating code of great significance that he and other generations would reuse, with grateful tears misting their eyes. In fact, it never happened. He had in his head, most of the algorithms he needed and would simply write the code from scratch each time, refining the algorithms and tailoring the code to meet the specific requirements. It was, he said, simply quicker to do that than dig out the old code, check it, correct the mistakes, and adapt it. Is this a common experience, or just a strange anomaly? Viewed in a certain light, building code with a focus on reusability seems to hark to a past age where people built cars and music systems with the idea that someone else could and would replace and reuse the parts. Technology advances so rapidly that the next time you need the “same” code, it’s likely a new technique, or a whole new language, has emerged in the meantime, better equipped to tackle the task. Maybe we should be less fearful of the idea that we could write code well suited to the system requirements, but with little regard for reuse potential, and then rewrite a better version from scratch the next time.

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Instant Rename and Rename Refactoring

- by Petr

During the last weeks I have got a few questions about rename refactoring and some users also complain to me that the refactoring in NetBeans 6.x was much faster. So I would like to explain the situation. For some people, who don't know, Instant Rename action and Rename Refactoring can look like one action. But it's not true, even if both actions use the same shortcut (CTRL + R). NetBeans 6.x contained only Instant Rename action (speaking about PHP support), which we can mark as very simple rename refactoring through one file. From NetBeans 7.0 the Instant Rename action works only in "non public" context. It means that this action is used for fast renaming variables that has local context like inside a method, or for renaming private methods and fields that can not be used outside of the scope, where they are declared. From user point of view these two action can be simply recognized. When is after CTRL+R called Instant Rename action, then the identifier is surrounded with rectangle and you can rename it directly in the file. It's fast and simple, also the usages of this identifier are renamed in the same time as you write. The picture below shows Instant Rename action for $message identifier, that is visible only in the print_test method and due this after CTRL+R is called Instant Rename. In NetBeans 7.0, there was added Rename Refactoring that is called for public identifiers. It means for identifiers that could be used in other files. If you press CTRL+R shortcut when the caret is inside $hello identifier from the picture above, NetBeans recognizes that $hello is declared / used in a global context and calls the Rename Refactoring that brings a dialog to change the name of the identifier. From this dialog you have to preview suggested changes, through pressing Preview button and then execute the refactoring through Do Refactoring button. Yes, it's more complicated from user point of view than Instant Rename, but in Rename Refactoring NetBeans can change more files at once. It should be the developer responsibility to decide whether the suggested changes are right and the refactoring can be executed or in some files original name should be kept. Someone can argue that he doesn't use $hello variable in any other file so Instant Rename could be used in such case. Yes it's true, but in such case NetBeans has to know all usages of all identifiers and keep this informations up to date during editing a file. I'm sure that this is not possible due to the performance problems, mainly for big projects. So the usages are computed after pressing the Preview button. And why is the Refactor button always disabled in the Rename dialog and user has to always go through the preview phase? NetBeans has API and SPI for implementing refactoring actions and this dialog is a part of this infrastructure. If you rename an identifier for example in Java, the Refactor buttons is enabled, but Java is strongly type language and you can be almost in 99% sure that the IDE will suggest the right results. In PHP as a dynamic language, we can not be sure, what NetBeans finds is only a "guess". This is why NetBeans pushes developers to preview the changes for PHP rename. I hope that I have explain it clearly. I'm open to any discussion. What I have described above is situation in NetBeans 7.0, 7.0.1 and probably it will be also in NetBeans 7.1, because there is no plan to change it. Please write your opinion here.

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Easy and Rapid Deployment of Application Workloads with Oracle VM

- by Antoinette O'Sullivan

Oracle VM is designed for easy and rapid deployment of application workloads. In addition to allowing for rapid deployment of an entire application stack, Oracle VM now gives administrators more fine-grained control of the application payloads inside the virtual machine. To get started on Oracle VM Server for x86 or Oracle VM Server fo SPARC, what better solution than to take the corresponding training course. You can take this training from your own desk, by choosing from a selection of live-virtual events already on the schedule on the Oracle University Portal. Alternatively, you can travel to an education center to take these courses. Below is a selection of in-class events already on the schedule for each course: Oracle VM Administration: Oracle VM Server for x86 Location Date Delivery Language Paris, France 11 December 2013 French Rome, Italy 22 April 2014 Italian Budapest, Hungary 4 November 2013 Hungarian Riga, Latvia 3 February 2014 Latvian Oslo, Norway 9 December 2013 English Warsaw, Poland 12 February 2014 Polish Ljubjana, Slovenia 25 November 2013 Slovenian Barcelona, Spain 29 October 2013 Spanish Istanbul, Turkey 23 December 2013 Turkish Cairo, Egypt 1 December 2013 Arabic Johannesburg, South Africa 9 December 2013 English Melbourne, Australia 12 February 2014 English Sydney, Australia 25 November 2013 English Singapore 27 November 2013 English Montreal, Canada 18 February 2014 English Ottawa, Canada 18 February 2014 English Toronto, Canada 18 February 2014 English Phoenix, AZ, United States 18 February 2014 English Sacramento, CA, United States 18 February 2014 English San Francisco, CA, United States 18 February 2014 English San Jose, CA, United States 18 February 2014 English Denver, CO, United States 22 January 2014 English Roseville, MN, United States 10 February 2014 English Edison, NJ, United States 18 February 2014 English King of Prussia, PA, United States 18 February 2014 English Reston, VA, United States 26 March 2014 English Oracle VM Server for SPARC: Installation and Configuration Location Date Delivery Language Prague, Czech Republic 2 December 2013 Czech Paris, France 9 December 2013 French Utrecht, Netherlands 9 December 2013 Dutch Madrid, Spain 28 November 2013 Spanish Dubai, United Arab Emirates 5 February 2014 English Melbourne, Australia 31 October 2013 English Sydney, Australia 10 February 2014 English Tokyo, Japan 6 February 2014 Japanese Petaling Jaya, Malaysia 23 December 2013 English Auckland, New Zealand 21 November 2013 English Singapore 7 November 2013 English Toronto, Canada 25 November 2013 English Sacramento, CA, United States 2 December 2013 English San Francisco, CA, United States 2 December 2013 English San Jose, CA, United States 2 December 2013 English Caracas, Venezuela 5 November 2013 Spanish

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Best Practices for Handing over Legacy Code

- by PersonalNexus

In a couple of months a colleague will be moving on to a new project and I will be inheriting one of his projects. To prepare, I have already ordered Michael Feathers' Working Effectively with Legacy Code. But this books as well as most questions on legacy code I found so far are concerned with the case of inheriting code as-is. But in this case I actually have access to the original developer and we do have some time for an orderly hand-over. Some background on the piece of code I will be inheriting: It's functioning: There are no known bugs, but as performance requirements keep going up, some optimizations will become necessary in the not too distant future. Undocumented: There is pretty much zero documentation at the method and class level. What the code is supposed to do at a higher level, though, is well-understood, because I have been writing against its API (as a black-box) for years. Only higher-level integration tests: There are only integration tests testing proper interaction with other components via the API (again, black-box). Very low-level, optimized for speed: Because this code is central to an entire system of applications, a lot of it has been optimized several times over the years and is extremely low-level (one part has its own memory manager for certain structs/records). Concurrent and lock-free: While I am very familiar with concurrent and lock-free programming and have actually contributed a few pieces to this code, this adds another layer of complexity. Large codebase: This particular project is more than ten thousand lines of code, so there is no way I will be able to have everything explained to me. Written in Delphi: I'm just going to put this out there, although I don't believe the language to be germane to the question, as I believe this type of problem to be language-agnostic. I was wondering how the time until his departure would best be spent. Here are a couple of ideas: Get everything to build on my machine: Even though everything should be checked into source code control, who hasn't forgotten to check in a file once in a while, so this should probably be the first order of business. More tests: While I would like more class-level unit tests so that when I will be making changes, any bugs I introduce can be caught early on, the code as it is now is not testable (huge classes, long methods, too many mutual dependencies). What to document: I think for starters it would be best to focus documentation on those areas in the code that would otherwise be difficult to understand e.g. because of their low-level/highly optimized nature. I am afraid there are a couple of things in there that might look ugly and in need of refactoring/rewriting, but are actually optimizations that have been out in there for a good reason that I might miss (cf. Joel Spolsky, Things You Should Never Do, Part I) How to document: I think some class diagrams of the architecture and sequence diagrams of critical functions accompanied by some prose would be best. Who to document: I was wondering what would be better, to have him write the documentation or have him explain it to me, so I can write the documentation. I am afraid, that things that are obvious to him but not me would otherwise not be covered properly. Refactoring using pair-programming: This might not be possible to do due to time constraints, but maybe I could refactor some of his code to make it more maintainable while he was still around to provide input on why things are the way they are. Please comment on and add to this. Since there isn't enough time to do all of this, I am particularly interested in how you would prioritize.

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Review: ComponentOne Studio for Entity Framework

- by Tim Murphy

While I have always been a fan of libraries that improve coding efficiency and reduce code redundancy I have mostly been using ones that were in the public domain. As part of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program a got my hands on ComponentOne’s Studio for Entity Framework. Below are my thought after working with the product for several weeks. My coding preference has always been maintainable code that is reusable across an enterprises protfolio. Because of this my focus in reviewing this product is less on the RAD components and more on its benefits for layered applications using code first Entity Framework. Before we get into the pros and cons here is a summary of the main feature listed for SEF. Unified Data Context Virtual Data Access More Powerful Data Binding Pros The first thing that I found to my liking is the C1DataSource. It basically manages a cache for your Entity Model context. Under RAD conditions this is setup automatically when you drop the object on a your design surface. If you are like me and want to abstract you data management into a library it takes a little more work, but it is still acceptable and gains the same benefits. The second feature that I found beneficial is the definition of views with improved sorting and filtering. Again the ease of use of these features is greater on the RAD side but no capabilities are missing when manipulating object in code. Linq has become my friend over the last couple of years and it was great to see that ComponentOne had ensured that it remained a first class citizen in their design. When you look into this product yourself I would suggest taking a dive into LiveLinq which allow the joining of different data source types. As I went through discovering the features of this framework I appreciated the number of examples that they supplied for different uses. Besides showing how to use SEF with WinForms, WPF and Silverlight they also showed how to accomplish tasks both RAD, code only and MVVM approaches. Cons The only area that I would really like to see improvement is in there level of detail in their documentation. Specifically I would like to have seen some of the supporting code explained, such as what some supporting object did, in the examples instead of having to go to the programmer’s reference. I did find some times where currently existing projects had some trouble determining scope that the RAD controls were allowed, but I expect this is something that is in part end user related. Summary Overall I found the Studio for Entity Framework capable and well thought out. If you are already using the Entity Framework this product will fit into your environment with little effort in return for greater flexibility and greater robustness in your solutions. Whether the $895 list price for a standard version works for you will depend on your return on investment. Smaller companies with only a small number of projects may not be able to stomach it, you get a full featured product that is supported by a well established company. The more projects and the more code you have the greater your return on investment will be. Personally I intend to apply this product to some production systems and will probably have some tips and tricks in the future. del.icio.us Tags: ComponentOne,Studio for Entity Framework,Geeks With Blogs,Influencers,Product Reviews

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SQLAuthority News – Follow up on – Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together

- by pinaldave

Last month I had a fantastic time with lots of puzzles and brain teasers, the amount of participation which I have received on the blog is indeed inspiring to write more. One of the blog post was about how to replace a column name in all the stored procedures. The article had very interesting conversation as a follow up. Please read the original article Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together before reading this blog further as they are connected. Let us start few of the interesting comments. SQL Server Expert Imran Mohammed had a wonderful first and excellent note. I suggest all of you to read it. Imran stresses on the Data Modelling and Logical as well as Physical Design. Developers must create a logical design and get approval on naming convention, data types, references, constraints, indexes etc. He further suggested that one should not cut steps but must follow all the industry standards and guidelines. Here extended my blog post with following note – “Extending Pinal’s answer, what you can do is go to database properties, all tasks, scripts objects, in scripting wizard select all the stored procedure for which you want to change column name, export the query to a new window and then do find and replace, all in once window and execute the script. But make sure you check what you are replacing, sometimes column names are also used in table names, for ex:Table Name: Product and Column Name: ProductId, ProductName”. Thanks Imran Great Points! Gatej Alexandru suggested that it is not good idea to DROP or CREATE but rather use ALTER as quite possible there may be permissions issue as well. Very good point let me see if I can write blog post over it. Vinay Kumar and SQLStudent144 have proposed another method to achieve the same. I am combining their solution and writing them here. Step 1. Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 2. Execute below commands.SELECT 'EXEC sp_helptext [' + referencing_schema_name + '.' + referencing_entity_name + ']' FROM sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities('schema.objectname','OBJECT') Where schema.objectname is the object or table you are searching for. Step 3. Now copy the result and paste in new window. Again Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 4. Copy the result and paste in new window. Execute the query. Step 5. Copy the result and paste in new window. Step 6. Now find your searching text in the script, make necessary changes and execute this script. Do not forget to remove the code which is generated in resultset which are not relevant to the T-SQL Script. Digitqr suggest we can do this for other objects besides Stored Procedure as well. Iosif suggests to use tool SQL Search from RedGate. I guess this sums it well. We have an alternative perspective to our original issue of replacing the column name in multiple stored procedure. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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RTL (Arabic and Hebrew) Support for Windows Phone 7

- by Daniel Moth

Problem and Background Currently there is no support for Right-To-Left rendering in Windows Phone 7, when developing with Silverlight (itself built on .NET Compact Framework). When I encountered that limitation, I had a flashback to 2005 when I complained about the luck of RTL on NETCF. Unfortunately, the partial solution I proposed back then requires PInvoke and there is no such support on Windows Phone today. Fortunately, my RTL requirements this time were more modest: all I wanted to do was display correctly a translation (of Hebrew or Arabic) in my FREE WP7 translator app. For v1.0 of the app, the code received a string from the service and just put it up on the screen as the translated text. In Arabic and Hebrew, that string (incorrectly) appeared reversed. I knew that, but decided that since it is a platform limitation, I could live with it and so could the users. Yuval P, a colleague at Microsoft, pushed me to offer support for Hebrew (something that I wasn't motivated to pursue if I am honest). After many back and forths, we landed on some code that works. It is certainly not the most efficient code (quite the opposite), but it works and met the bar of minimum effort for v1.1. Thanks Yuval for insisting and contributing most of the code! After Hebrew support was there, I thought the same solution would work for Arabic. Apparently, reversing the Arabic text is not enough: Arabic characters render themselves differently dependent on what preceded/succeeds them(!). So I needed some kind of utility that takes a reversed Arabic string and returns the same string but with the relevant characters "fixed". Luckily, another MS colleague has put out such a library (thanks Bashar): http://arabic4wp7.codeplex.com/. RTL Solution So you have a reversed RTL string and want to make it "right" before displaying on the screen. This is what worked for me (ymmv). Need to split the string into "lines". Not doing this and just reversing the string and sticking it a wrapping text control means that the user not only has to read right to left, they also have to read bottom up. The previous step must take into account a line length that works for both portrait and landscape modes, and of course, not break words in the middle, i.e. find natural breaks. For each line, break it up into words and reverse the order of the words and the order of the letters within each word On the previous step, do not reverse words that should be preserved, e.g. Windows and other such English words that are mixed in with the Arabic or Hebrew words. The same exclusion from reversal applies to numbers. Specifically, for Arabic, once there is a word that is reversed also change its characters. For some code paths, the above has to take into account whether the translation is "from" an RTL language or if it is "to" an RTL language. I packaged the solution in a single code file containing a static class (see the 'Background" section above for… background and credits). Download RTL.cs for your Windows Phone app (to see its usage in action download for FREE "The best translator app") Enjoy, and if you decide to improve on the code, feel free to share back with me… Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project

Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project include and are not limited to: cost reduction, increased return on investment (ROI), reduced time to market, increased speed and efficiency, increased security, and increased interoperability. These drivers primarily focus on streamlining and reducing cost to make a company more profitable with less overhead. According to Answers.com cost reduction is defined as reducing costs to improve profitability, and may be implemented when a company is having financial problems or prevent problems. ROI is defined as the amount of value received relative to the amount of money invested according to PayperclickList.com. With the ever increasing demands on businesses to compete in today’s market, companies are constantly striving to reduce the time it takes for a concept to become a product and be sold within the global marketplace. In business, some people say time is money, so if a project can reduce the time a business process takes it in fact saves the company which is always good for the bottom line. The Social Security Administration states that data security is the protection of data from accidental or intentional but unauthorized modification, destruction. Interoperability is the capability of a system or subsystem to interact with other systems or subsystems. In my personal opinion, these drivers would not really differ for a profit-based organization, compared to a non-profit organization. Both corporate entities strive to reduce cost, and strive to keep operation budgets low. However, the reasoning behind why they want to achieve this does contrast. Typically profit based organizations strive to increase revenue and market share so that the business can grow. Alternatively, not-for-profit businesses are more interested in increasing their reach within communities whether it is to increase annual donations or invest in the lives of others. Success or failure of a project can be determined by one or more of these drivers based on the scope of a project and the company’s priorities associated with each of the drivers. In addition, if a project attempts to incorporate multiple drivers and is only partially successful, then the project might still be considered to be a success due to how close the project was to meeting each of the priorities. Continuous evaluation of the project could lead to a decision to abort a project, because it is expected to fail before completion. Evaluations should be executed after the completion of every software development process stage. Pfleeger notes that software development process stages include: Requirements Analysis and Definition System Design Program Design Program Implementation Unit Testing Integration Testing System Delivery Maintenance Each evaluation at every state should consider all the business drivers included in the scope of a project for how close they are expected to meet expectations. In addition, minimum requirements of acceptance should also be included with the scope of the project and should be reevaluated as the project progresses to ensure that the project makes good economic sense to continue. If the project falls below these benchmarks then the project should be put on hold until it does make more sense or the project should be aborted because it does not meet the business driver requirements. References Cost Reduction Program. (n.d.). Dictionary of Accounting Terms. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/cost-reduction-program Government Information Exchange. (n.d.). Government Information Exchange Glossary. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from SSA.gov Web site: http://www.ssa.gov/gix/definitions.html PayPerClickList.com. (n.d.). Glossary Term R - Pay Per Click List. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from PayPerClickList.com Web site: http://www.payperclicklist.com/glossary/termr.html Pfleeger, S & Atlee, J.(2009). Software Engineering: Theory and Practice. Boston:Prentice Hall Veluchamy, Thiyagarajan. (n.d.). Glossary « Thiyagarajan Veluchamy’s Blog. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Thiyagarajan.WordPress.com Web site: http://thiyagarajan.wordpress.com/glossary/

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